psuhoffman

Before my rant I’m about to unleash let me say I’m still hopeful for the period as a whole, especially the 15-20th. But so what. If we get one snow it doesn’t change anything I’m about to say… Ridges are pumping heat way further north than historically typical. Not just the SER but that’s the one we care about most! The pacific Hadley cell has expended and shifted north. We have had numerous perfect track rainstorms the last 5 years. We have seen cold fail to push even when we have a flow off northern Canada because even a bit of maritime mix ruins it. We only get cold with direct cross polar flow lately. The pacific, gulf, and Atlantic basin SST are on fire. The mountains in the west will encourage troughing but as soon as systems eject that feel the heat from the gulf and amplify and cut. Blocking fails more often at our latitude because the ridging is stronger than historically normal shifting the typical mid latitude response north. Patterns that used to mitigate a bad pac lately fail to even dent the SER. None of this is speculative. I’m just describing what is ACTUALLY happening. This isn’t predictive. This has already happened. It’s not change. It’s our current reality. But it seems to me there is something, that which must not be named, that can explain all of this!

This was a Nino! It’s not just the pacific. Im going to say this over and over and over. The pac is an easy scape goat since we are in a -pdo so we have had a predominant -pna. But we snowed in past -pdo periods when we got blocking with a crap pacific. A bad pac shouldn’t mean no hope no matter what else is going on! Yes we snow way more with a good pac but I can cite a ton of snows historically with a pac every bit as bad as we’ve had lately! And the proof it’s not just the pac is the few times the pac hasn’t been awful the SER has still been an issue.

It’s more than that. We’ve had snowstorms from waves that came out of the southwest before. The real problem is any wave that approaches the SER goes berserk! Look at the wave on the 18z Gfs in the SW on the 16th. Tons of cold and confluence in front of it. But within 24 hours the flow ahead of that wave obliterates it and pumps a ridge to kingdom come again. I’ve pointed this out before and no one wanted to engage. But warm is just winning in a rout. Waves come out of ty west and amp to hell no matter what the pattern in front is. It’s not the pac. By day 3 the pac is almost the exact opposite with a north central pac trough. You can’t blame the pac with a ridge there then blame the pac with a trough. I’m tired of that nonsense. There is something else going on. The SER is being fed by more than just the pac and because if it any wave that comes off the pacific amplified way to our west.

The blocking is having the typical response. The wave yesterday turned southeast after cutting. There is a wave early next week that is forced to turn southeast. The trough in the west is eventually forced east. It’s just all happening way too far north for us. And this has been true of almost every block the last 5 years. Extreme blocking is supposed to be good for the mid Atlantic. Historically it’s bad for New England. But lately northern New England has been winning big with blocks and we just get colder rain.

Maybe there is no good pattern for us anymore.

6z Gfs missed South with the best threat. Good.

Good point…just because the average surface temp is 52 doesn’t mean you need a -20 airmass. I’d the avg 850 temp is near 0 a more mundane below avg airmass can work because during heavy precip the column from 700 down is typically close to isothermal. The reason avg surface temps are so high is when it’s sunny and we’re not in a cold regime temps will spike into the 60s and 70s easily in mid March. Even in a cold regime a sunny day will get into the upper 40s. But when it’s precipitating it still doesn’t take a super anomalous airmass to get cold enough to snow until closer to April. The main reason we lose snow in March is we lose marginal events (which we seem to have lost all the time anyways) and minor light events won’t work. How often do we get flush hits any time of year? But most of the time what would be a flush hit in January will still work in mid March. It’s just rare. But so is snow in January lately lol.

The plot predictions are generated by the same models so…

Pattern evolution. Mjo getting towards phase 1. Pac isn’t hostile. Cold established.

the climo difference between March 11-12 and March 15-16 isn’t that drastic. But it doesn’t matter…regardless of a degrading climo the setup has to be right. If it’s not it doesn’t matter what the date is. A good setup has a better chance March 15 than a bad setup March 10. Besides didn’t you get like 6” on March 20th in 2018?

Whenever I bring it up some folks go nuts but I guess my point is that there is SOMETHING going on and “it’s the pac” doesn’t fully cover 100% of it. I think you’re putting a different spin on my “the SER is acting like a cause more than an effect sometimes. I think it makes perfect logical sense if the heat added to the equation from the STJ off the pac combined with the gulf then Atlantic all combine to create a feedback loop that’s horrible for us. I agree on the speculation this would amp systems out west earlier. We are about to see if a high amplitude mjo phase 8/1 can overcome this feedback loop. If it can’t…oh boy.

I do still like the period after. I was never that optimistic for the lead wave. My rant is more just how we blame the pac by default even when it’s not the pac.

@CAPE what’s even the pacific answer??? If that trough shifts any further east yes it would force the ridge into the west but it would also flood N Amer with pac puke so we would end up with a full continent ridge.

@CAPE this is what I mean. Look at the location of the pacific trough/ridge alignment. This makes sense. Aleutian ridge. Trough should be in the west with a SER but look what happens when the pac flips the the exact opposite pattern as the mjo gets into phase 8. Aleutian trough and… The conus trough ridge alignment remains unaltered. but wait check this out… the pac trough is even slightly east of ideal there…the ridge east if it is begging squeezes to death because the trough still refuses to exit the west. We need to stop blaming the pac. Yes 75% of the time it’s been in a bad case state. But that’s not unheard of. The reason we’re getting such atrocious results is even when the pac is altered it’s made no difference, the wavelengths just adjust however they need to accommodate the SER. It’s almost as if the TNH is more dominant here not the central pacific.

Just read the last 6 pages. Thought maybe this was worth a bump.

I feel ya but in the long run we’re in deep trouble if we can only snow in a -NAO Mod Nino. Those happen once a decade. They updated the correlations for the Indo Pac warm pool. The only good MJO phase is now 9. It’s gonna be thunderdome in here until it snows. Just have to put on your big boy pants and roll with it.

But I still think our best bet is centered on the 15th

The cutters are deeper.

If I can summarize this…The concerns wrt the initial wave if it comes out in one monster amplification like todays Ops are founded. There is a lot of ridging in front left over from the current pattern. Even with a block an over amped wave will push the boundary to our NW. This is why we usually do better with the follow up waves in a blocking regime! The one fly in that ointment would be a crazy bomb from wave one could suck the air out of the pattern and squash everything behind it. I don’t mind a 990 cutter to start the pattern…we don’t want some sub 980 monster firming a TPV over Ohio! Luckily if I had to root for the guidance to be over or under amplified at long leads I’ll take needing to root against the crazy once a decade anomaly every time!

If I want one model to have to be “over amped” it is the euro. Just sayin.

I could see this tease us into April but realistically climo starts to get really hostile on the coastal plain by then. It depends where you are. I think realistically after these threats through March 18 or so it’s over for them. Piedmont could still possible score late March. Above 1000 ft maybe into early April. But realistically our best chance is one of these 4 waves or so between March 10 and 20th probably.

If there is interest I would be open to it. But I’m not at home so I have to see what my internet situation is.

You all are going to lose your minds if you get too invested in each solution every 12 hours right now. The pattern is loaded. We will have threats. Probably multiple. Hopefully we get lucky and one is a flush hit. But the final solution to any of these threats won’t show itself yet on guidance. The pattern is way too noisy. This isn’t a Nino split flow blocking regime where the NS is quiet and we guidance simply has to time up the STJ waves. This pattern involves too many wave interactions for guidance to nail details at long leads. Some thought I have on this pattern…we have multiple ways to score. If the initial wave fails it could pull the boundary south for the next one. That seems our most likely win. If it holds back it could eject waves that might get us. This wouldn’t be a big storm scenario but boundary waves can be respectable in March. About the only total fail would be if all the energy ejects and phases into a March 93 type event but cuts. Then we get rain and cold dry after and since everything gets bundled once it lifts the whole pattern could break down. If this does end up ejecting all the energy and bombing while exciting that might be our lowest snow probability scenario. Most upside though. Pick your poison.

Don’t shoot me for saying this but given the climo changes since then isn’t that likely how a March 58 redux would play out now considering the original DC proper got 6-12” of super heavy wet snow from like 3” QPF. It kept mixing with rain with temps at like 34-36 most of that storm.

We probably need to go 300 years before we’re due for anything like that again. But weather doesn’t work that way anyways. I know you’re just having fun.